October 20, 2026
Strategy vs Implementation
Broadly speaking, there are three altitudes at which you can engage with your clients.
- Strategy (i.e., high impact)
- Implementation (i.e., medium impact)
- Maintenance (i.e., low impact)
As a solo consultant or small firm, it’s impractical to operate at all three.
Ideally, you’d only operate in one, but sometimes you end up with a foot in two of them if you’re transitioning from one to another.
I was chatting with a student who has lots of organic leads coming in. Some are for strategy, and others are for implementation.
We talked about the pros and cons of operating at one or the other to decide which opportunities to accept and which to refuse.
The big difference between strategy and implementation is this:
- Strategy tends to be high profit, low revenue
- Implementation tends to be low profit, high revenue
In other words, a strategy gig could be $10k of revenue with a 90% profit margin, whereas one implementation gig could be $100k with a 10% profit margin.
These two engagements deliver almost the same net profit - $9k for the strategy work and $10k for the implementation work - but the strategy work might only take two days, and the implementation work might take six months.
Strategy gigs are harder to get than implementation, but from a business standpoint, it makes tons of sense to try to figure out how to find more of them because they’re dramatically less work for almost the same profit.
Yours,
—J